A cartography of the Aztec Gods Pantheon
“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be an Aztec jaguar warrior…”
South American and Mesoamerican civilizations have fascinated me since my childhood - when I would watch “The Mysterious Cities of Gold” an early 80’s Japanese-French anime series. Solar-powered galleon ship, golden mechanical-condor, three kids exploring the New World at the beginning of Spanish Conquest and mini documentaries at the end of each episode. Who could ask for anything more?
(Footnote: Hoping for a sequel? Already done in 2012!)
But with 2021 marking the 500th year since the fall of Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire, it was time to switch from passion to understanding. Time to commemorate the complexity of the Aztec Pantheon, make the academic research more accessible to the general public and show how this civilization is still alive in our global culture.
Information is scattered, partial and sometimes contradictory but, thanks to the Pudding and its gifted team, we tried to embrace all of them to give you an extensive map and an overview of the Aztec Pantheon. And we hope it will help you see this civilization with your inner child’s eyes, just like I did years ago.
Written sources:
lost or tainted
Until its rise as an academic field that strives for accuracy, history has been, by definition, written from a single point of view. Concerning our subject, we stumble upon a major difficulty: the Aztecs destroyed materials created by their rivals in order to justify the dominance of their empire. And Spanish conquerors and Christian missionaries brought about an even bigger annihilation, toppling Aztec society and rewriting their works.
Fortunately, some of these missionaries tried to collect as much information as they could, especially pioneer of anthropology Bernardino de Sahagún, while others, like Bartolomé de Las Casas, fought for indigenous rights. Their work is still precious to historians.
Complex iconography
Aztec gods, in iconographic sources, are a little like paper dolls, with important symbolic accessories added to their form (feathers and jade for nobility or power, walking stick for merchants, skulls and bones for the underworld, claws or fangs for sacrificial dimension, etc.). This explains the difficulty in identifying gods, even by specialists, as these symbols can be emphasized for a particular worship or switched between deities, if they share similar fields of competence. Thus, gods can have multiple disguises, or “nahual”, and share them with others, like a never-ending stream.
Below, you can look at two examples of Aztec gods, Tezcatlipoca and Tlaltecuhtli, and their combinations of symbols which permit identification.